IELTS Speaking Band Descriptors Explained, Criterion by Criterion

Candidates walk out of the Speaking test with theories about their performance — "I hesitated too much," "I used good idioms," "my accent is a problem." Examiners, meanwhile, mark against four published criteria, each worth exactly a quarter of the score. Most of the folk theories map onto the descriptors poorly: hesitation matters, but only a specific kind; idioms help, but only used naturally; accent, by itself, is not marked at all. This guide goes through the four criteria in plain language, so you know what is actually being assessed during those eleven to fourteen minutes.

How the marking works

The examiner rates your whole performance — all three parts together — on Fluency and Coherence, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy, and Pronunciation, each as a whole band from 0 to 9. The four are averaged to give your Speaking band. Because the criteria are equally weighted, a candidate with rich vocabulary but constant self-correction, or accurate grammar delivered in broken fragments, plateaus quickly. Balanced competence beats one spectacular strength.

Criterion 1: Fluency and Coherence

This is the criterion candidates misunderstand most. It does not reward speed, and it does not punish all pausing. It measures whether you can keep going at a natural rate and whether your speech is organised and connected.

• At Band 5, the speaker keeps going but relies on repetition and self-correction, or slows noticeably to search for language; overuse of certain connectives is typical.
• At Band 6, the speaker is willing to speak at length, but loses coherence at times through hesitation, repetition or self-correction.
• At Band 7, the speaker speaks at length without noticeable effort; hesitation is mostly content-related — pausing to think about ideas rather than to find words — and discourse markers are used with some flexibility.
• At Band 8–9, speech flows with only rare, content-related hesitation, and topics are developed coherently and appropriately.

The key distinction: pausing to think about what to say is human and largely forgiven; pausing to hunt for words is penalised. You can hear the difference in your own recordings — language-searching pauses come mid-sentence, before ordinary words. The fix is practice volume on familiar topics, which is exactly what Part 1 topic families are for: drill them with our Part 1 sample answers until everyday subjects cost you no word-searching at all.

Criterion 2: Lexical Resource

This measures the range and precision of your vocabulary, your ability to paraphrase when a word will not come, and — from Band 7 up — the natural use of idiomatic language and collocation.

• At Band 5, the speaker manages familiar and unfamiliar topics but with limited flexibility, and attempts paraphrase with mixed success.
• At Band 6, vocabulary is wide enough to discuss topics at length and paraphrase generally succeeds, though word choice is sometimes inappropriate.
• At Band 7, the speaker uses vocabulary flexibly, shows awareness of style and collocation, and uses some less common and idiomatic items.
• At Band 8–9, vocabulary is used with full flexibility and precision; idiomatic language is natural and accurate.

What caps you here: planted idioms. "It's raining cats and dogs" delivered into a question about your hometown does not read as Band 7 idiomatic use; it reads as a memorised insert. What the descriptors mean by idiomatic language is the natural phrasal texture of real speech — "took it for granted," "fell through," "a close-knit team." Collect collocations by topic rather than isolated impressive words: our topic banks for environment and technology vocabulary show the method. And practise paraphrase deliberately — being visibly able to talk around a missing word is itself a scored skill.

Criterion 3: Grammatical Range and Accuracy

As in Writing, this criterion wants both variety — complex structures, not only simple sentences — and accuracy, measured largely by how many of your sentences are error-free.

• At Band 5, basic sentence forms are reasonably controlled, but complex structures are limited and error-prone.
• At Band 6, the speaker mixes simple and complex forms, but errors recur in the complex ones.
• At Band 7, a range of complex structures is used with some flexibility, and many sentences are error-free, even if some mistakes persist.
• At Band 8–9, the range is wide and errors are rare, often just slips.

How to earn range without risking accuracy: let the question pull the grammar out of you. "Has your hometown changed?" invites the present perfect; "What would you change about your job?" invites conditionals; describing a past experience in Part 2 invites narrative tenses. Answering the question fully and honestly produces natural range; bolting on rehearsed complex frames ("Were I to be given the opportunity…") produces errors and memorised-sounding delivery. In practice sessions, pick one structure you avoid — say, second conditionals — and force three honest uses per session until it stops being a risk.

Criterion 4: Pronunciation

The most misunderstood criterion. Accent is not the issue. The descriptors reward being effortlessly intelligible and using the sound systems of English — individual sounds, word stress, sentence stress, intonation and chunking — to carry meaning.

• At Band 5, pronunciation features are attempted with mixed control, and the listener occasionally has to work to understand.
• At Band 6, a range of features is used with mixed control; mispronunciations occur but rarely block understanding.
• At Band 7, features like stress and intonation are used with some flexibility, and the speaker is easy to understand throughout, even if traces of the first language remain.
• At Band 8–9, the full range of features is used flexibly and the speaker is effortless to understand; a foreign accent may still be present and it does not matter.

The highest-yield work is usually not individual sounds but sentence stress and chunking — stressing the words that carry meaning and grouping words into natural phrases with small pauses between them. Flat, evenly-paced delivery is what makes competent English tiring to follow. Record yourself, mark the stressed words in one answer, and re-record it with deliberate emphasis; the improvement is usually audible on the first attempt.

Turning the descriptors into a practice loop

The criteria give you a four-question checklist for every recorded practice answer: Did I keep going, with only thinking-pauses? Was my vocabulary precise and collocated, with paraphrase where needed? How many sentences were fully correct, and did I use any complex structures? Would a stranger follow me effortlessly? Score yourself one criterion at a time — listening for everything at once catches nothing. Then drill with purpose: authentic-style questions for all three parts are on our Speaking practice pages, and a full mock test tells you how the criteria hold up under real timing and pressure. Examiners are trained to rate exactly these four things; from today, your practice sessions should be too.